Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/112

Chajj. iyi OF MANCHESTER. 85 right, the elevation is three or four yards above it, as in fixty more the elevation is nearly five, and in feventy more is a&ually fix. Thus gradually gaining a more elevated creft and a more magnificent afped, the road is carried for no lefs than four hundred yards acrofs this hollow pf the mofs. The ridge of the gravel rifes gently for the firft^two hundred yards, and falls as gently for the next. And the fummit of the creft is nearly level in the fall with the roof of an adjoining cottage. This extraordinary grandeur of the road in the fell is not, as might naturally be imagined at fir ft, the mere refult of Ro- man contrivance and Britifh induftry. It has been partly occa- ifoned by the accidental fubfidence of the ground upon either fide ef the road, the thick coat of the turfy fbrface having been greatly cut away, and the ground being fomewhat reduced to the deep level of its vegetable mold. And it has been equally occa- sioned by the procefs of the Romans in conftru£ting. the road. From a large incifion which I made into the bed of the turf be- neath the Roman gravel, they appeared plainly to have origin* ally trenched the line of the mofs that was . deftined to receive the road very deeply upon either fide. And the larger and more folid plates of turf, which rofe with the ftiovel from the lower 'parts of the trench, they appear ed to have kid. upon the original face of the mofs,. and to have raifed the level of the line with them more than' a yard in height. Upon finking a pit along die fide of the gravel and for a yard aod an half into the black foiV no ling or heath. was found 'upon the furface of the foil and immediately below the gravel It. was firft found about a yard below the Surface- And it was then- found in* confidejable quantities* . The whole work was carried gradually floping up- wards frank the .broad bails of twelve or fourteen yards on the furface of the mofs, till at the height of nine oar ten it tenhiriated in a narrow creft of three or four abovtv and ran level with the firmer ground upon either extremity of it. And the Roman gravel appears heaped upon the black line of the original foil, and raifed in general near a yard and an half above it. 4*» The